Comm. health centers get grants

Havre Daily News staff

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Health Resource and Services Administration has awarded two local community health centers grants to help with mental health and opiod addiction, part of $2.8 million in grants to 17 health centers in Montana and $200 million nationwide.

In Montana, Chinook’s Sweet Community Health Center Inc. received $175,000 and Havre’s Bullhook Community Health Center received $15, 701.

The grants were awarded to health centers to support expansion and integration of mental health services and substance abuse services, a Health and Human Services release announcing the grants said. These services focus on the treatment, prevention, and awareness of opioid abuse in the primary care setting by increasing personnel, leveraging health information technology, and providing training.

The expanded funding, the release said, is part of the Department of Health and Human Services’ five-point strategy to fight the opioid epidemic by:

• Improving access to treatment and recovery services.

• Targeting use of overdose-reversing drugs.

• Strengthening our understanding of the epidemic through better public health surveillance.

• Providing support for cutting-edge research on pain and addiction.

• Advancing better practices for pain management.

“Nationally, about half of all care for common mental health conditions happens in the primary care settings,” HRSA Administrator George Sigounas, MS, Ph.D., said in the release. “In health centers, where people are often most comfortable, staff with varied expertise have a unique opportunity to provide mental health and substance abuse services to patients who wouldn’t otherwise seek or have access to treatment.”

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Watch for more about these grants in upcoming editions of the Havre Daily News.